


Just Shop with Somebody Tough

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [95]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, BAMF Sally, F/M, Grocery Shopping, Parent-Child Relationship, and Mycroft is also going to fuck your shit up, and especially not with her son, do not mess with Sally Donovan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 03:15:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1712903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sally likes to take Ford to do ordinary things, like shopping at Tesco's. so he doesn't get too used to the idea that there is some silent, secret army taking care of all the mundane things. Unfortunately, this shopping trip involves a would-be assassin and kidnapper. Fortunately, he seems ill informed and also incompetent. Even more fortunately, Ford just wants to ask the Bad Man about kangaroos, snakes and Vegemite.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Shop with Somebody Tough

**Author's Note:**

> This incident was referenced in the 221b ficlet [She's Like the Wind'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1468465). I was urged to write it - and this is the story of 'that one time at Tesco's with that idiot Australian.'
> 
> The title is a lyric from Shopping by the Barenaked Ladies.

Regardless of her work or her spouse, Sally still liked to do ordinary things sometimes, like popping into Tesco's for a few top-up groceries. She liked to take Ford on these outings too, so he didn't get too used to the idea that there was some silent, secret army taking care of all the mundane things. (Though, in effect, there was. She had no idea when Mycroft had last been in a supermarket, but she would have laid bets it was well before 1990.)

Shopping with almost-five-years-old Ford in tow wasn't ever the most restful of activities, however. He always had so many _questions_ , most of which Sally could never hope to answer. She'd learned to deal with it by answering what she could, asking him for his own theories when she had no idea, and encouraging him to make a list to ask Mycroft or, failing that, Sherlock, at a later time. That could often be as entertaining as his own theories, because both men without fail tried to answer as fully and honestly as they could, no matter how often Ford followed up with 'but why?'.

Her favourite part was Ford's own theories, because he was so astonishingly bright and insightful, but also a little boy with a child's understanding of the world. For example, he'd worked out for himself that tomatoes were put into tins so they would last longer, even if they didn't taste as good. But then he'd decided that they were put in cylindrical tins rather than square ones because they could be built into a pretty stack and then pushed over to make burglars roll around and fall on their bums, and then  Daddy and Mummy could send the burglars to their rooms without supper for being naughty. Ford stated that the food companies were very intelligent to include burglar-thwarting in the design brief.

Sally had two bags of shopping in one hand along with the car's remote key as they walked back to their parking spot. Ford was holding onto her other hand, and was nattering away to her about the owners of the cars they passed.

"And that one has two boys who play football, and that one has a cat, and that one isn't married anymore so the little girl sits in the front, and that one likes Doctor Who, and that one is a very bad driver - look at all the accidents they've had! And that one has... Mummy, why does that sneaky man want to talk to us?"

They'd reached their own car as Ford said this. Sally was aware of the man in question as Ford spoke, and she knew instantly it wasn't a chat the man was after. If his expression wasn't a dead giveaway, the handgun with the silencer he held close to his thigh to keep it out of view certainly was.

"Sweetie, remember when we play hidden dragon?" Sally said calmly as she held her thumb against the car key’s unlock trigger.

"Oh!" said Ford, and immediately he let go of her hand and moved a little behind his mother just like Mummy and Daddy had taught him. "Is he a very bad man?" he asked in a stage whisper.

"He is, sweetheart," she said, "and you remember what to do if he tries to grab you?"

"Crouching tiger!" said Ford, "Rawr!" and he made little claws too, and a ferocious little face, ready to jump up and scratch at eyes if he had to.

"Good boy," said Sally, still as calm as if they were discussing cheese on toast, because there was no way in this world she was going to allow her son to be frightened, no matter how hard her own heart was now crashing in her chest.

The Very Bad Man was two arm lengths away now, smiling nastily and raising the gun.

Three things happened in very quick succession.

Sally thumbed the unlocking mechanism with two quick jabs (she could hear the boot unlock and springing open, just as it was designed to do for that command; three cheers for Mycroft mucking about with his car electronics on weekends to make life easier).

At the same time, she swung the bags of groceries - tins of tomatoes and a block of cheese and a jar of olives for one of Ford's food experiments - right into the would-be assassin's face.

And as she did those two things, Sally stepped closer to the bastard, slamming the heel of her hand down on his upcoming wrist which held the gun, hoping that if it went off, the bullet would do no worse than graze her thigh.

The soft _pffft_ of the bullet fired on silencer cracked into the bitumen, but the sound was almost lost in his hiss of pain as a can of tomatoes collided with the bridge of his nose. That whole scenario distracted him sufficiently that Sally - in more fluid motions extending from the first three – dropped the groceries,  popped the car boot, kneed the bastard in the bollocks and shoved him into the cramped space. She slammed the boot door down on his ankles and wrists then, and he dropped the gun with a squeal.

"Get that for me, sweetie?" she asked, "And remember..."

"I know!" chirped Ford, holding the gun by the butt, "Fingers off the trigger!" He grabbed the weapon in the prescribed manner and stood back while his mother opened the boot again.

He didn't see her punch the man in the face, but he heard the man's choked grunt of pain and he noted with concern that she was shaking the sting of the blow from her fist as she pulled back.

"Mummy?"

"It's okay, honey." she smiled reassuringly for him. "I'm just going to make sure he can't do anything silly until we get home."

She took up one of the shopping bags, emptied it into the boot and used the plastic bag to tie the assassin's hands together, not bothering to be gentle with what was obviously a fractured wrist. She likewise emptied the second bag and tied his feet together.

The assassin was trying to blink the blood from his eyes, while breathing through his open mouth because his broken nose wasn't much use right now.

"Fuckin' bitch," he snarled, a bit wetly through the blood.

"Are you from Melbourne?" Ford asked the Very Bad Man from behind his mother. He'd only met Australians from Sydney so far, but the accent was unmistakable, "Do you have a kangaroo in your yard or do you live in a city? Do you have a snake? Snakes are interesting. They shed their skins. A lot of the ones in Australia are venomous. They bite you and you can _die. Venomous_ is a bit like _poisonous_ , but it's not. Venomous things bite or sting you but poisonous things just sit there waiting for you to touch or eat them. So it's like venomous things attack you but poisonous things are defending themselves if you attack them. So like, if you bit me to inject a-a-a _toxin,_ did I say that right?, you'd be venomous, but if I licked you and it made me sick, you'd be poisonous. But I'm not going to lick you; that would be disgusting. Though I bet Sherlock would. John is always going mad at him for licking things. But I still don't understand why Sherlock says the newspapers are venomous. Have you ever licked a newspaper? It's _disgusting_ and it makes your tongue dry and a bit black and I had to drink a lot of milk and my poo was black. Do you like Vegemite?"

The assassin stared at Ford like he didn't understand a word.

"I do and I like it with cheese but Daddy says it tastes like axle grease and salt and John says Australians are trained to eat it from birth to build up an _imm-u-ni-ty_ , but he says a lot of things to be silly. He makes me and Sherlock laugh. Does your nose hurt?" Ford asked.

"Fuckin' oath, yeah," confessed the assassin.

"I’ll take the gun now, sweetie, then you go sit in the front."

Ford dutifully gave her the weapon and trotted around to pull open the passenger door and climb into the seat.

While her boy was buckling in, Sally pointed the gun at the assassin in the boot of her car and took her phone from her pocket to call Mycroft.

A fellow shopper strolled past, took one look at the grim-faced black woman with a trussed and bloodied Anglo-Asian in the boot of her car, blanched, and ran back to the supermarket.

Sally sighed because, on top of everything else, she was going to have to find a new place to shop.

"Hello, love," she said, gun unwavering, "I've got an Australian assassin in the car... We're fine. Ford was telling him about snakes and Vegemite... Well,  I can’t do that in the car park of Tesco’s... Home? Fine. See you in ten."

She hung up, put her phone in her pocket and shook her head at the man.

"If I hear a word out of you on the way home, I'm going to let a lorry tail-end me, hard. Got it?"

"What about your kid?"

"He wears a seatbelt. Besides, he thought it was fun when his Dad had to do it," she said, and banged the door shut.

Ford chattered to her all the way home, unconcerned about the man in the boot. "Can I have cheese and Vegemite when we got home? Do you think the bad man wants some? I don’t think he should have any. He's mean. Will you send him to bed without supper? Noses look funny bent in the middle like that. I bet John could fix it. But John doesn't like bad men. Once a bad man came to Baker Street and Sherlock took me outside for a little walk, but I know John made the man’s nose go squish like that, even though they don't know I know. He called Sherlock and John a rude name, and Mrs H. threw a mouldy potato at him, and he went away. Can I have a kitten?"

"No, honey. I'm allergic."

"Oh. Can I have a snake?"

"Not a venomous one."

 "Oh. Can I have an ice cream when we get home?"

"You can have cheese and Vegemite when you get home."

"Okay, and then can I have ice cream?"

"You can have ice cream after dinner."

"Yay!" Then Ford twisted in his seatbelt to say over his shoulder, "No ice cream for you, though. You were naughty. You tried to hurt Mummy." He nodded for emphasis then turned back to face the front. "There's Daddy!"

And there indeed Mycroft was, standing inside the gates, in his suit, with his umbrella. As the car pulled up within the grounds, and the automated gates closed behind them, Ford undid his seat belt. The car stopped and Mycroft opened the door. Ford jumped out and then up into his father's arms, crouching-tiger style, though without intent to gouge, saying " _Raaawr!_ " as he did. Mycroft laughed and pretended to bite his son's fingers, making Ford giggle.

"A sneaky bad man came to talk and I did hidden dragon really well and Mummy bent his nose with the tomatoes and put him in the boot and he doesn't have a pet snake or a kangaroo and he called Mummy a rude name but not as rude as the swears John makes and Mummy says I can have cheese and Vegemite and ice cream after tea and _hello_!"

"Hello," said Mycroft and kissed the top of his son's head before putting him down again, "Now, go inside with Gunston and wash your hands. Mummy and I will be in shortly."

"Okay. Hi Mr Gunston."

Gunston, waiting nearby, grinned and held out his hand for the boy to take. "Hello yourself, Master Holmes. Your daddy says you know a lot about snakes. How about you tell me?"

Mycroft and Sally waited until their chattering boy was well gone before they opened the boot.

The Australian had been attempting to get out of his impromptu bonds, but only managed to draw them tighter. He gave the pair a baleful glare now.

"I'm going to bloody kill Favreau," he said, "Shoot the wife and kidnap the kid, he said, it'll be a doddle. The dickhead."

"Quite," said Mycroft, "I've half a mind to let you take a message to Favreau personally. But I have other plans for you."

The Australian looked ill.

Mycroft smiled.

The Australian began to hyperventilate.

A van pulled up outside the gate. In a few short minutes, the pleading Australian was transferred from one vehicle to the other. The van drove off.

Sally and Mycroft watched it go, then Mycroft kissed her cheek. "He didn't hurt you?"

"I didn't give him the chance. Does Favreau really have no idea what I do for a living?"

"He has despairingly archaic views. I rather suspect he thinks I married my secretary."

They both laughed at that one. Then they sobered.

"Sherrinford seems rather...sanguine about the incident," Mycroft observed.

"Our son," said Sally, suspended perfectly between concern and pride, "seemed to think it was another training scenario and when he wasn't explaining the difference between venomous and poisonous and asking for a kitten, was fascinated by that idiot's broken nose."

Mycroft's expression also achieved that perfect pride/concern balance.

"Better than him bring frightened," asserted Sally.

"Indeed," he replied, and kissed her on the cheek. "Favreau will deeply appreciate the error in his judgement for even daring such a thing," he murmured darkly in her ear, and kissed her again.

Sally cupped his cheek in her hand. She had changed so much since that day in Chingford Plains when she had chosen a life aligned with the Holmeses, and she would never have imagined then where the choice would lead her; or how fulfilled it would make her. Or that she would understand the things this man was thinking but not saying.

"We're here, sweetheart," she reassured him softly, "We're all right." She kissed his mouth and the end of his nose.

Certainly, Mycroft would never have imagined where his decision to employ this fierce woman would lead him, either, nor the contentment it would bring him. But with contentment, sometimes came fear.

On the driveway of their home, Mycroft crushed his Sally in his arms, buried his face against her neck and breathed in her scent, calming himself. Sally ran fingers through his hair and let him feel the solidity of her presence.

“You show him,” she said, voice steady and determined, “You make sure Favreau knows to never threaten our son again.”

“He’ll wish he’d never been born,” swore Mycroft, and Sally found she was perfectly all right with that.

When Mycroft stood straight again, he was all contained, urbane calm once more. Sally smiled, took his hand, kissed the knuckles, and said, "Grab the cheese from the boot. Ford wants cheese and Vegemite."

Mycroft wrinkled his nose delicately.

"I know," she laughed, "I blame the King for introducing him to the stuff."

They fetched a few of the loose groceries, planning to send Gunston out for the rest later, when he arranged to garage the vehicle and clean the blood from the boot.

Holding hands, they walked into their home, where their boy proceeded to breathlessly tell his father about the excitement that was The Tesco’s Supermarket and _all the different kinds of sauce_ and _why are they all the same but all different, and why, but why, but why, **but why**?_

And Mycroft tried to answer, _every single time_.

A little top-up shopping, Sally thought, even when it included the unpleasantly unexpected, was still one of her favourite things.

Later they had dinner - and then they _all_ had ice cream.


End file.
